This invention relates to a vertical spindle winder, more particularly, apparatus to wind vertically running yarn such as freshly spun yarn descending from a spinning stack.
It is known to wind vertically running yarn from any source above the winder as a continuous running length of yarn with a vertical spindle having a pulley mounted on a driven shaft, a stationary wheel yarn guide, an upper vertically movable yarn guide wheel, a lower vertically movable yarn guide wheel, a double track cam being vertically mounted with driven pulley and shaft, an upper cam follower and shoe, lower cam follower and shoe, a cam housing having a vertical slot, a motor having a spindle drive pulley and a cam drive pulley mounted on the drive shaft, a belt to drive the spindle from the motor and a belt to drive the cam from the motor. The motor drives the vertical spindle and the cam by a connection of the driven pulleys to the drive pulleys with the belts. The vertically movable yarn guide wheels are connected to their respective cam followers and shoes and the cam followers are both driven by the one double track cam to oscillate vertically in the cam housing slot in such a manner that the upper vertically movable yarn guide wheel oscillates only in the upper half of the slot; the lower vertically movable yarn guide wheel oscillates nearly the full length of the slot but for the full traverse of the winding yarn at twice the speed of the upper wheel so that the movable guide wheels acting in concert maintain a constant length of yarn between the stationary yarn wheel, and the spindle. The stationary wheel is centered with respect to the length of the yarn traverse as it is wound onto the vertical spindle.
The double track cam is cut so that the upper cam track is in the upper half of the cylinder and the cam track for the lower yarn wheel guide is cut nearly the full length of the cylinder. This lower cam track stops short of the top of the traverse of the upper cam track so that the two yarn wheel guides do not collide at the top of their oscillating motion or traverse. They both must reach the top of their traverse at the same time to accomplish the constant yarn length of this invention.
Packages of up to 95 pounds or more of yarn from any source above the vertical spindle as a running continuous length of yarn can be made. The yarn passes over the stationary wheel guide, over the upper vertical movable yarn guide wheel and then over the lower vertically movable yarn guide wheel, both mounted on brackets in the vertical slot in the cam housing. They traverse the yarn as described above. The spindle is rotated to wind up the yarn at a constant take-up speed. In the prior art, there were three major obstacles to the success of such a winder: (1) a wind suitable for both start-up right after string-up of the yarn on the winder was not suitable for winding the yarn at a standard operating condition, and vice versa, (2) cams and cam followers and shoes would break at the high speeds of the reversal points in the cam tracks, and (3) brackets of the movable yarn guide wheels which held them to the cam followers also broke at the high speeds at the reversal points.